Norman, John - Gor 08 - Hunters of Gor.txt

by Hunters of Gor [lit]

  scream under the lash. She can scarcely breathe. She can scarcely whisper,

  hoarsely, piteously, begging for mercy. In Port Kar I had seem the fingernails

  of girls torn to the quick as they scratched at stones against which they were

  tied. If she is bound against a wall her entire body may be injured, wiped with

  abrasions, as she tried to escape the whip. For this reason a girl to be whipped

  is often suspended from a ring or a pole.

  In a few minutes as I had expected, I saw some pairs of slave girls, three

  pairs, each pair tied together by the neck, brutally driven, stumbling, crying

  out, from the palisade. A man of Tyros, with a whip, followed each pair.

  I noted that, as I would have supposed, and had been anticipating, that the

  girls driven forth now to gather wood, and were isolated in the slave line

  between Sheera and Grenna, both panther girls. The other two pairs, whimpering,

  were girls from Marlenus’ camp. All of these girls were terrified of the forest.

  None of hem, presumably, could survive alone in it. It was natural that the

  pairs had been arranged as they had, particularly that of Cara and Tina, given

  their location in the coffle. I needed Tina, and I preferred to have Cara, too,

  though, for my plan, another girl might do as well. If Cara had not been tied

  with Tina I should still have done what I did. I needed the pair which contained

  Tina. I had suspected, as long ago as Lydius, that that fantastic little wench

  might prove of great utility to my enterprises. I had not, however, expected to

  apply her as I now intended.

  The men of Tyros, following the weeping girls with their whips, did not care to

  enter the forest.

  “Gather wood, quickly, and return!” cried the fellow guarding Cara and Tina.

  “Do not drive us into the forest!” begged Cara. She knelt and put her head to

  his feet.

  “Come with us,” wept Tina. “Please, Master!” she knelt before him, holding his

  ankle, her lips pressed to his foot.

  For answer the slave lash fell twice.

  Weeping, the two girls sprang to their feet and ran to the edge of the forest

  and, trying not to enter into its shadows, rapidly, weeping, began to break

  branches and gather wood.

  “Hurry! Hurry!” called their guard.

  He snapped the whip.

  The two girls in bondage knew well the sound of the whip. They cried out with

  misery.

  They had already been beaten, too, in the stockade. Their delicate flesh, like

  that of any slave girl, was terrified of the lash. The only woman, slave or

  free, who does not cringe before the lash is she who had not felt it.

  But, too, they feared the forest, the darkness, the animals. There were girls of

  civilized cities. The forest at night, with its sounds, its perils, the teeth

  and claws of its predators, was a nightmare of terror for them.

  They carried two armloads of branches, and fell to their knees before the guard.

  “Let it be enough,” they wept.

  They wished to return, and promptly, to the light of the animal fires.

  They looked up at him, pleading.

  “Gather more wood, Girls,” said he to them.

  “Yes, Master,” they said.

  “And deeper in the forest,” said he.

  “Please!’ they wept.

  He lifted the whip.

  “I obey!” cried Cara.

  “I obey!” wept Tina.

  From far off, in the forest, came the snarling of a panther.

  The girls looked at one another.

  The man gestured with the whip.

  They fled to the darkness of the trees and began to break and gather wood.

  In a few minutes, each with an armload of sticks and branches, they emerged.

  They knelt before the figure in the yellow of Tyros who stood with the whip,

  waiting for them, on the beach.

  “Is it enough?” begged Cara, looking down.

  “It is quite enough,” I told them.

  They looked up, startled.

  “Be silent!” I warned them.

  “You!” breathed Cara.

  “Master,” whispered Tina, her eyes wide.

  “Where is the guard?” asked Tina.

  “He stumbled and fell,” I told them. “It seems he struck his head upon a stone.”

  I did not expect he would awaken for several hours.

  “I see,” said Cara, smiling.

  He had not expected danger from the seaward side of the beach. There were many

  large, flattish, rounded stones on the beach. He had encountered one.

  “There is great danger here for you, Master,” said Tina. :You had best flee.”

  I looked across the beach, some two hundred yards, to the palisade. I wiped sand

  from my right hand on the woolen tunic of Tyros.

  Then I looked down at Tina.

  “There are more than fifty men of Tyros here,” said Tina.

  “There are fifty-five, excluding Sarus of Tyros, their leader,” I told her.

  She looked at me.

  “It was you who followed us,” said Cara.

  “You must flee,” whispered Tina, “there is danger here for you.”

  “I think,” said Cara, smiling, “there is danger her, too, for those of Tyros.”

  I looked up at the moons.

  It was near the twentieth hour, the Gorean midnight. I must hurry.

  “Follow me,” I told the two slaves.

  They leaped to their feet and, still tied together by the neck, in their

  tattered woolen tunics, followed me along the beach.

  Behind us we heard men calling out the name of another man, doubtless that of

  the guard, his struck unexpectedly by the blow of a stone. Doubtless he would

  conjecture that the girls had managed to sneak behind him and strike him, thus

  making good their escape. There would be wonderment at that, of course, for the

  girls had been only girls of the civilized city, thought to be terrified of the

  forest night.

  We saw torches far behind us, the search for the guard.

  I lengthened my stride. The girls, tied together, stumbling, struggled to match

  my pace.

  The wood we left behind us on the beach. The men of Tyros might use it for their

  fires, and their beacon.

  I did not begrudge them its use. It would do them little good.

  I looked up at the sun. it was near the tenth hour, the Gorean noon.

  I snapped off a large branch, extending from a fallen tree, with the flat of my

  foot.

  I then dragged it down to the beach and threw it on the great pile of wood which

  I, and Cara and Tina, had accumulated.

  I had freed them of the neck tether, and they had worked tirelessly, and with

  ardor. They had worked as might have free persons. It had not been necessary to

  use the whip, stolen from the guard, on them.

  Their zeal puzzled me. They were only female slaves.

  “We are ready,” I told them.

  We surveyed the great construction of dried branches and gathered driftwood. We

  had done well.

  We had trekked during the night and into the morning. Then we had not stopped to

  rest, but had begun to gather wood.

  I surveyed our great accumulation of driftwood and branches. We had done well.

  Being slaves they had dared not inquire of me the intention of our efforts. I

  was not displeased that they had not done so. I had no wish to beat them. It

  would have
cost me time.

  The piles of branches and driftwood was some twenty pasangs south of the camp of

  the men of Tyros.

  The girls smiled at me, they were weary.

  “To the edge of the forest, Slaves,” I told them.

  At the fringe of the forest, overlooking the sloping beach, covered with its

  stones, and, lower, with its sand. I found a strong, slender tree, with an

  outjutting branch some five feet from the ground, the branch facing away from

  the water.

  “You will have the first watch,” I told Tina. “You are to alert me to the

  presence of a sail or sails on the horizon.”

  “Yes, Master,” said Tina.

  I shoved her back against the tree.

  “Put your arms over your head,” I told her. “Now bend your elbows.”

  I tied each wrist separately, tightly, again the tree, lopping the binding fiber

  about the tree twice, and twice over the outjutting branch. She stood, thus,

  facing the sea, her wrists tied back, against each side of the tree.

  With another length of binding fiber I jerked her belly back against the tree,

  tying it there, tightly.

  “If you fall asleep,” I told her, “I will cut your throat.”

  She looked at me. “Yes, Master,” she whispered.

  I thrust some strips of tabuk meat from my walled into her mouth.

  “Eat,” I told her.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  I also gave her some water from the guard’s canteen.

  “Thank you, Master,” she said.

  I looked at Cara.

  “It will not be necessary to bind me,” said Cara.

  “Lie on your stomach,” I told her, “and cross your wrists, behind your back, and

  your ankles.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  I also secured her by the neck, by means of a thong, to a nearby tree.

  I turned her over. “Open your mouth,” I told her.

  She did so.

  I thrust some strips of tabuk meat into her mouth.

  “Eat,” I told her.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  When she was finished, I lifted her in my left arm, giving her to drink from the

  canteen.

  “Thank you, Master,” she whispered.

  I recalled how she had looked in the compartments of Samos, so long ago, when he

  and I had addressed our attentions to the board of the game, and while Rim, then

  a slave, chained, had watched.

  I looked at Tina, tied, back against the tree, my slave. How long ago it seemed

  she had cut my purse in a street along the wharves of Lydius.

  Both had been swept up, helpless slaves, both beautiful, in the harsh games of

  men.

  But it was unimportant. They were only slaves.

  I fed from the tabuk strips in my wallet, looking out to sea, and then drank

  from the canteen of the guard.

  I was weary.

  I returned to where Cara lay bound. She was helpless, and beautiful. She was

  slave. Already she was asleep.

  I lay down on the leaves to rest.

  I looked up at the branches, and the leaves and then I, too, almost immediately

  fell asleep.

  I awakened only once before nightfall, to change the position of Tina and Cara.

  I wished Tina to be fresh. She was asleep even before I had thonged her neck to

  the tree.

  At nightfall I arose. I freed both Cara and Tina. I looked up at the moons. They

  rubbed their wrists, where my binding fiber had bitten into them.

  I looked out to sea, across the vast, placid waters of Thassa, now bright with

  oblique moonlight. We three stood together on the beach, on the sands, among the

  stones, and observed Thassa, the murmuring, gleaming, elemental vastness, Thassa

  the Sea, said in the myths to be without a farther shore.

  It seemed to me not unlikely that this would be the night.

  “How beautiful it is,” said Cara.

  I saw no sails on the horizon, against the fast-graying sky.

  I took water from the canteen, and ate strips of tabuk meat from my wallet.

  The girls regarded me. They, too, were hungry and thirsty.

  “Kneel,” I told them.

  When I had satisfied my thirst, there was little left in the canteen. I threw it

  to Cara. She and Tina then finished the bit of water remaining. When I had

  satisfied my hunger on the tabuk strips, there was but one left. I tore it in

  two and threw half to each of the girls.

  They were Gorean girls, and slaves. They did not complain. They knew that they

  had been fed earlier in the day. They knew that, if it were not my will, they

  would not be fed at all.

  Access to food and water is a means of controlling and training slaves, as it is

  of any animal.

  I looked upward. The moonlight would not last for more than an Ahn. I was

  pleased.

  Clouds, like tarns from the north, swept in some stratospheric wind, were moving

  southward. Their flight was black and silent, concealing the stars, darkening

  the sky.

  On the beach it was quiet, a calm night, in early summer.

  What turbulence there was, was remote, seemingly far removed from us, a matter

  only of clouds, silently whipped in distant, unfelt winds, like rivers,

  invisible in the sky, breaking their banks, hurling and flooding in the night,

  carrying the intangible debris of darkness before them, soon to extinguish the

  fires of the stars, the swift lamps of the three Gorean moons.

  The night was calm, a still evening in early summer, rather warm. Somewhere,

  abroad the Thassa, concealed by the bending of a world, moved the Rhoda and

  Tesephone.

  But they must be near. They had a rendezvous to keep.

  I looked out to sea.

  Thassa seemed now an unbroken vastness, where a black sky met a blacker sea.

  We could hear her, restless.

  “It is time,” I told the slaves.

  Together we picked our way down the beach, across the stones, across the soft

  sands, until we came to the side of the great accumulation of branches and

  driftwood which we had earlier prepared.

  From my wallet I took a small, smooth stone and a tiny, flat metal disk.

  I lighted a brand.

  This brand I then thrust into the great pile of branches and driftwood.

  Gorean galleys do not commonly sail at night, and, often put into shore during

  darkness.

  I expected, however, because of the dangers of the shores of Thassa, and the

  importance of their mission, the Rhoda and Tesephone, though they might like at

  anchor, would not make a beach camp. Had I been the commander of the two ships I

  would have laid to offshore, coming in only when necessary for water or game. I

  would also, however, following common Gorean naval custom, have remained within

  sight of, or in clear relation to, the shore. The Gorean galley, carvel built,

  long and of shallow draft, built for war and speed, is not built to withstand

  the frenzies of Thassa. The much smaller craft of the men of Torvaldsland,

  clinker built, with overlapping, bending planking, are more seaworthy. They must

  be, to survive in the bleak, fierce northern waters, wind-whipped and

  skerry-studded. They ship a great deal more water than the southern carvel-built

  ships, but they are stronger, in the sense that they are more elastic. They must

  be baled, frequently, and
are, accordingly, not well suited for cargo. The men

  of Torsvaldland, however, do not find this limitation with respect to cargo a

  significant one, as they do not, generally, regard themselves as merchants or

  traders. They have other pursuits, in particular the seizure of riches and the

  enslavement of beautiful women.

  Their sails, incidentally, are square, rather than triangular, like the

  lateen-rigged ships of the south. They cannot said as close to the wind as the

  southern ships with lateen rigging, but, on the other hand, the square sails

  makes it possible to do with a single sail, taking in and letting out canvas, as

  opposed to several sails, which are attached to and removed from the yard, which

  is raised and lowered, depending on weather conditions.

  It might be mentioned too, that their ships hare, in effect a prow on each end.

  This makes it easier to beach them than would otherwise be the case. This is a

  valuable property in rough water close to shore, particularly where there is

  danger of rocks. Also, by changing their position on the thwarts, the rowers,

  facing the other direction, can, with full power, immediately reverse the

  direction of the ship. They need not wait for it to turn. There is a limitation

  her, of course, for the steering oar, on the starboard side of the ship, is most

  effective when the ship is moving in its standard “forward” direction.

  Nonetheless, this property to travel in either direction with some facility, is

  occasionally useful. It is, for example, extremely difficult to ram a ship of

  Torvaldsland. This is not simply because of their general size, with consequent

  maneuverability, and speed, a function of oarsmen, weight and lines, but also

  because of this aforementioned capacity to rapidly reverse direction. It is very

  difficult to take a ship in the side which, in effect, does not have to lose

  time in turning.

  Their ships are seen as far to the south as Shendi and Bazi, as far to the north

  as the great frozen sea, and are known as far to the west as the cliffs of Tyros

  and the terraces of Cos. The men of Torvaldsland are rovers and fighters, and

  sometimes they turn their prows to the open sea with no thought in mind other

  than seeing what might lie beyond the gleaming horizon. In their own legends

  they think of themselves as poets, and lovers and warriors. They appear

  otherwise in the legends of others. In the legends of others they appear as

  blond giants, breathing fire, shattering doors, giants taller than trees, with